The Borehole Research Group (BRG) uses downhole geophysical measurements in a wide variety of scientific investigations including sea level variations, paleoceanography, flow of fluids through fractured rock

Starting today, armchair explorers will be able to view parts of the deep ocean floors in far greater detail than ever before, thanks to a new synthesis of seafloor topography released through Google Earth. Developed by oceanographers at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory from scientific data collected on research cruises, the new feature tightens resolution in covered areas from the former 1-kilometer grids to just 100 meters.

BP’s leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico was conclusively sealed this week, but even now questions remain about the amount of oil that actually came out of it. Now, in the first independent, peer-reviewed paper on the leak’s volume, scientists have affirmed heightened estimates of what is now acknowledged as the largest marine oil accident ever.

John Diebold, a marine scientist who sailed the world’s oceans for more than four decades using sound waves to study earthquake faults, underwater volcanoes and other normally hidden features of the seabed, died on July 1 at his home in Nyack, N.Y. The apparent cause was a heart attack, his family said; he was 66.

What causes the peaks and valleys of the world’s great mountains? For continental ranges like the Appalachians or the Northwest’s Cascades, the geological picture is clearer. Continents crash or volcanoes erupt, then glaciers erode away. Yet scientists are still puzzling out what makes the highs high and the lows low for the planet’s largest mountain chain, the 55,000-mile-long Mid-Ocean Ridge.